


Side Effects

by trixm



Category: Lazer Team (2015)
Genre: Angst and Feels, Implied Sexual Content, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-03
Updated: 2016-03-03
Packaged: 2018-05-24 11:24:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,297
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6152115
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/trixm/pseuds/trixm
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Woody struggles with the repercussion of a helmet that doesn't come off.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Side Effects

**Author's Note:**

> This all came out of terrible insomnia and trying to figure out how in the hell Woody would even live with a helmet on 24/7 poor bb.

Woody had been featured in the news every day for the past month.

 

Well, not only Woody, but the rest of Lazer Team as well.  For all of the articles and television spots they’d been on, no one had picked up on the title Helmet Boy and Friends.  That was okay though, as long as people stopped hounding them soon.  

 

Sure, it’s nice being a champion of Earth and all, but Woody really would have liked to go back to his run of the mill life.  He missed his girlfriend and blowing up fireworks in old fields with Herman- although maybe Woody wouldn’t be doing that again any time soon if alien helmets were involved.  But it had been a month and based off of predictive algorithms, the public would have to get tired of them sooner or later.  Maybe.

 

\---

 

Woody was no longer speaking with his parents.

 

It wasn’t anyone’s fault, he reasoned.  They were just set in their ways and nowadays, Woody wasn’t able to be the son they knew.  He tried, but sometimes the helmet was insistent.  

 

Pretty much as soon as they spent time with ‘new’ Woody, as they put it, they had kicked him right out of the Johnson household.  From correcting grammar to suggesting ways to improve his Maw’s lifestyle, Woody couldn’t control what came out of his mouth at times.  What made it worse was that it came out in that stupid British accent that had both his parents reeling in confusion.  So he had been told that until he could stop spouting nonsense he should stay away, and he had for the past two months.  It was no one’s fault, really.

 

\---

 

Woody found his days boring.

 

Despite living on a military base where everything was made of structure, Lazer Team often had a very unique schedule.  Between training in pairs or solo, and sometimes even as a team, no two days were the same.  Testing was endless and their limits were pushed, but that didn’t mean Woody wasn’t bored.

 

With all the gifts that came with his helmet, reading people had to be both the best and worst feature.  Sure, it helped his reactions both physically and verbally in order to optimize his chance of success, but it also resulted in him being able to correctly predict their actions over time.  Even Zach, whose reactions came off as wild and inconsistent to the untrained eye, fit a pattern after three months.  And once he figured them all out, each day dragged in and out like a movie Woody had seen a thousand times.  He had stopped hoping for a break in the monotony.

 

\---

 

Woody couldn’t remember the how mashed potatoes taste.

 

Really, it was rather ridiculous, he mused.  He had eaten them for twenty years- a Thursday night staple Johnson household.  Woody would never say they were his favorite food, as they were something so common he had forgotten to appreciate them all those times.

 

But here he was now, four months into wearing this helmet and being fed medically with an IV.  His team was chowing down on mashed potatoes and Woody was struck with the realization that he could not recall the familiar taste.  It didn’t matter much, he supposed, as his sustenance was now balance so perfectly.  Yet as he watched the others eat, he couldn’t help but miss it.

 

\--- 

 

Woody hadn’t been able wash his hair in five months.  

 

On the scale of Herman drinking all the beers again to having to face down an advanced alien race in space for the continued survival of mankind, it ranked kind of low.  That didn’t mean that Woody didn’t wish he could just take the helmet off just so he could rinse out the grime that had built up over time.

 

It was getting long too.  He could see the glances of the other soldiers on base, the lingering looks of his teammates, and disdain on his girlfriend’s face when he FaceTimes her at night.  He wants to tell them it isn’t his fault and that he would do almost anything to fix the mess of hair on his head.  Instead he just smiles and pretends that he doesn’t notice their gazes and tries to forget that his hair is matted and grimey under this helmet

 

\---

 

Woody was on the ultimate dry streak.

 

It had been six months to the day that he hadn’t been with anyone intimately.  His girlfriend had long since given up on them, citing college and clashing lifestyles as her reason for parting ways.  Woody knew that it was the helmet.  It had been an issue since the first day she saw him with it on.  No more hours of endless kissing without purpose.  No more trailed lips down her neck with purpose.  The helmet inhibited what he could contribute to their love life and in the end the mere sight of it had his girlfriend cringing away from Woody’s advances.

 

Half a year since he had the fortune to be at the wrong place at the wrong time to inherit the only fourth of this alien warsuit that seems to be more trouble than it is worth.  It’s come to the point where Woody craves more than the release that his hand can give and at night he uses his cursed technology to create the illusion of a warm body next to share his bed.  Woody wishes he could forget what intimacy feels like as easily as he can forget taste.

 

\---

 

Woody wasn’t even sure he was human anymore.

 

Sure, he breathed in filtered air each day and needed a few hours of sleep each night.  Woody even technically ate, albeit through IVs nowadays, and performed advanced tasks expected of a person.  So what if his performance exceeded that of any average human?  Did it make him something else, something “other” if he even outclassed the above average specimens of this species?  

 

It wasn’t just his performance that was making Woody withdraw into himself but also the effects of the past seven months.  His family and closest friends had left him and what physical habits all humans share that Woody could participate in were becoming numbered.  Woody was left alone whenever one of these moments of shared habits arrive whether it be time to eat, time to shower, or down time where his team finally gets to talk to their loved ones.  And if it wasn’t bad enough, his own team had been taking their private time out of their shared space as Woody’s telepathy grew. Woody pretended he didn’t notice but it hurt that they thought so little of him to assume he’d use his powers to listen to their conversations.

 

So there Woody was, caught somewhere in which he is not quite human but not quite machine either.

 

\---

 

Woody was trying to mind his own business in their shared room when it happened.

 

Zach tapped Woody’s shoulder to get his attention through his headphones, which were blaring some bad pop punk song in hopes that the others would be assured Woody couldn’t hear their thoughts through the noise.  Woody nearly fell out of his bunk in surprise; at this point, any type of interaction outside of training was unexpected for Woody.  

 

An apology was quick to Woody’s lips as he expected to be asked to leave so Zach could FaceTime one of the girls he had met off of Instagram or something.  So when Zach grabbed Woody’s elbow and stopped him from leaving their room, Woody’s heart was already pounding from how strange his night was turning out.  A quick set of calculations resulted in Woody coming up with Zach pulling their bodies together as the third most probable result, making it one of his worst deductions in a while.  But Woody has his arms too full with Zach and the feeling of a another person pressed against him has become so exotic that Woody is pleased with his own miscalculation.

 

\---

 

Woody almost turns Zach down when he proposed that they both help each other out.

 

The words were almost formed when Zach ground down against him.  The rush of blood to Woody’s head was so intense that he found himself grabbing at Zach’s biceps just to remain upright.  It took less than a moment for Woody to gauge his vitals and analyze his elevated heart rate, quickened breathing, and rush of endorphins at the prospect of having someone there for him after so many long months.

 

Woody just found himself grinning at Zach from behind the glass of his helmet before grinding back onto the shorter man.  Their frottage was desperate as Zach backed Woody into his bunk and Woody couldn’t help as his attention constantly shifted from Zach to his own state because he felt so alive- so human.

 

\---

 

Woody felt like each of Zach’s touches set his nerves on fire.

 

Woody would later on be in awe of how small currents could ignite his synapses in such a way when Zach was just grabbing his hips or pushing down his shoulders.  In any other context these touches would be innocent or even the cause for self defense but the human body is a wonder in deciphering intent, it seemed.  Woody tried to ignore these distracting thoughts that had never plagued moments like this before and instead tried to focus on the sensations.  On Zach.

 

Their rutting was skin on skin now and Woody couldn’t stop the sounds that escaped his throat when Zach took advantage of his dominant position and ground down on Woody.  Zach laughed, dipping down to attach his lips on Woody’s shoulder as his hands make themselves useful in preparing Woody for what was to come next.  Woody could feel Zach’s breath on his flushed skin in between his suckling and it was that dizzying feeling that drove Woody’s nervous system into overdrive.

 

\---

 

Woody isn’t sure when he fisted his hands in Zach’s hair until he pulled a bit too hard and Zach whined about it.

 

The overgrown curls were much different than Woody’s own silky, straight hair but the feeling of it running between his fingers was delightful.  Woodywass grabbing and pulling then massaging and soothing; even if Zach didn’t groan and mewl at the actions Woody wasn’t sure he would stop.

 

Woody could almost feel the ghosting sensations of hands in his own hair as he played with Zach’s.  His imagined hair was cut and cleaned as it had been all those months ago when he had first put on the helmet and Woody’s toes curled just from the imagined stimulation.  

 

\---

 

Woody is surprised when something seemed off with the state of his mouth.

 

It takes a few seconds longer than he’d like to admit for Woody to realize that the sensation he is experiencing is taste.  Woody had been without tasting anything for so long that he actually yelped in surprise when he pinpoints what is happening.  Luckily for him, Zach took the noise as a result of his actions and just smirked against Woody’s skin before peppering his shoulder with more love bites.

 

Woody realizes that he is tasting himself through Zach’s perspective via the helmet’s telepathy unit.  Woody would feel guilty for the accidental intrusion of privacy if it hadn’t afforded him such a rare reminder of what he had been missing.  He can smell the sweat of their bodies and taste the saltiness of their skin through Zach’s perspective and this impossibly heightens the intimacy of this moment for Woody.  Zach is giving Woody everything he had been wishing for since he found this stupid helmet.

 

\---

 

Woody was sure that this was the best mathematical anomaly that he had ever encountered.

 

By all accounts, Zach had been much more likely to ask him to leave or to coerce him into pranking Hagan than ever initiate something between the two of them.  Woody had not seen this coming.

 

As their movements became less regulated and returned to the desperation of earlier, Woody felt euphoria build both in his lower gut as well as the back of his mind.  If the physical sensations hadn’t been enough to thrill him and offer a cathartic release to all the problems he had been encountering since the inception of Lazer Team, the sheer intellectual thrill at being proven wrong was overwhelming.  

 

\---

 

Woody felt like himself for the first time in too long.

 

His helmet was not forcing probabilities and analytics on him and he was left to enjoy the moment for once.  When he laughed at Zach’s poor attempt at pillow talk and quipped with his own remark, Woody was delighted to hear his southern drawl rather than the lilt of his helmet-influenced British accent.  Zach even seemed to grin wider his natural voice and they soon were gasping for air, pressed tight to each other’s bare chest.

 

Woody could have stayed there forever.

 

\---

 

Woody resented that his helmet’s powers weren’t working the one time he could have used them.

 

A moment after a bright light goes off, Woody was properly horrified as he realized that Zach had snapped a picture of the two of them together.  He had become so reliant on the imbedded alien systems of his helmet to give him almost an omnipotent awareness of his surroundings that he hadn’t paid any extra attention to Zach as they laid recovering together.  

 

The sphere that the pair had created shattered around Woody as Zach posted the picture of them both bare chested to his Instagram with a couple of crude emojis.  With a grin, Zach rolled out of bed and barely spared Woody a second glance as he left him naked and wrecked in his bed.

 

\---

 

Woody realized that there was no happy ending for those caught between man and machine.


End file.
